The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the

Question

The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the worker’s wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries. So, some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold.

The conclusion above is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?

(A) Bell Manufacturing will begin to suffer increased losses.
(B) Bell’s management will refuse to increase its worker’s wages.
(C) The workers at Bell Manufacturing will not be going on strike.
(D) Bell’s president has the authority to offer the workers their desired wage increase.
(E) Bell’s workers will not accept a package of improved benefits in place of their desired wage increase.

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey All,

I know some people have been arguing this one back and forth still, so I'll weigh in one last time.

18. The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the worker’s wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries. So, some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold.

Conclusion: Bell will sell subsidiaries
Premise: Workers going on strike unless management ups wages, but subsidiaries need to be sold to up wages
Assumption: Bell cares is workers go on strike

The conclusion above is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?
(A) Bell Manufacturing will begin to suffer increased losses.
PROBLEM: We don't need this to make the argument work, because this is theoretical about the strike, not necessarily implying that the strike will happen. If it doesn't, there needn't be any losses.

(B) Bell’s management will refuse to increase its worker’s wages.
PROBLEM: This is the opposite of what we want. If they don't increase wages, they won't need to sell subsidiaries.

(C) The workers at Bell Manufacturing will not be going on strike.
ANSWER: Try "least extreme negation" (this is the method whereby you can take the opposite of every answer choice, and whichever one DESTROYS the argument is the correct assumption). "The workers WILL be going on strike." If they go on strike, then that means their wages weren't increased, and thus that the company didn't sell its subsidiaries. That would destroy the conclusion.

(D) Bell’s president has the authority to offer the workers their desired wage increase.
PROBLEM: We don't need the president to have the authority. The board could do it, or anybody.

(E) Bell’s workers will not accept a package of improved benefits in place of their desired wage increase.
PROBLEM: Totally irrelevant, as the argument is ABOUT the wage increase.

Hope that helps!

-t

cano · Answer

Workers will go on strike if management doesn't increase wages.
To increase wages Bell needs to sell subsidiaries. Subsidiaries will be sold if we assume that:
Management will increase wages. Then workers will not go on strike.
We should find one of these assumptions in the answer choices:

A. Not inferred from the passage, because Bell could sell subsidiaries and not suffer losses.
B. Then Bell's subsidiaries don't need to be sold and workers will go on strike. Since the conclusion is that subsidiaries will be sold, one of the assumptions is that the management will increase wages, opposite to this option.
C. If we assume that the workers will not go on strike, is because the management increased the wages, and will sell some subsidiaries. This is properly drawn with the conclusion of the argument.
D. It's not relevant. He can offer, he can also sell subsidiaries. But this assumption doesn't help us here.
E. If they will not accept a package, it means that the management decided not to increase the wages and decided not to sell some subsidiaries. It goes against the conclusion.

According to this reasoning, C is the best option.

sjayasa · Answer

Nice Question gmatcracker2010. IMO C and OA is C too.

The question asks to identify the assumption made for concluding that the subsidiaries will be sold. If some of the subsidiaries are sold, then the increase in wages is certain. Increase in wages will in turn imply that the workers will not go on a strike.

You can also insert all the assumption choices in the argument and boil down to the one that makes sense logically. I have inserted option C to show that it makes sense.

The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the worker’s wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries.   Since, the workers at Bell Manufacturing will not be going on strike  , some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold.

(A) Bell Manufacturing will begin to suffer increased losses. 
(B) Bell’s management will refuse to increase its worker’s wages. 
(C) The workers at Bell Manufacturing will not be going on strike. 
(D) Bell’s president has the authority to offer the workers their desired wage increase. 
(E) Bell’s workers will not accept a package of improved benefits in place of their desired wage increase.

GMATOak · Answer

The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the worker’s wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries. So, some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold.

The conclusion above is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?

(A) Bell Manufacturing will begin to suffer increased losses.
(B) Bell’s management will refuse to increase its worker’s wages.
(C) The workers at Bell Manufacturing will not be going on strike.
(D) Bell’s president has the authority to offer the workers their desired wage increase.
(E) Bell’s workers will not accept a package of improved benefits in place of their desired wage increase.

For the question workers at Bell Manufacturing:ths gist of this arguments is that Bell industries is about to have a strike so-->sell subsidiaries -->increase worker wages

(A) Bell Manufacturing will begin to suffer increased losses.
 Talking about the future-Out of scope for conclusion questions 
(B) Bell’s management will refuse to increase its worker’s wages.
  If this is true the argument collapses  
(C) The workers at Bell Manufacturing will not be going on strike.
  One simple understanding is that it will increase the wage by selling the subsidiaries.Option C is the only option within the scope  
(D) Bell’s president has the authority to offer the workers their desired wage increase.
  We are not provided any information that whether president has the authority or not.So out of scope  
(E) Bell’s workers will not accept a package of improved benefits in place of their desired wage increase.
 Out of scope

Ridhimajain96 · Answer

I choose E
 because if workers will accept a package of improved benefits in place of their desired wage increase then there will be no need to sell subsidiaries. Since the conclusion says that they will sell subsidiaries that means they assume that there is no other way ( improved benefits ) but increase wages to stop the strike
C is the obvious result after selling the subsidies I can't understand y C is right
thanks in advance

GMATNinja · Answer

The author correctly reasons that some of Bell's subsidiaries will have to be sold in order to avoid a strike. But we can only accurately conclude that some of the subisidiaries will be sold IF we assume that the strike is to be avoided. What if the strike is simply allowed to happen? What if the president doesn't care whether the workers go on strike? If that's the case, there would be no reason to sell the subsidiaries.

Thus, the argument relies on the assumption stated in choice (C).

As for choice (E), we are already told that workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. This statement describes a NECESSARY condition. In order to avoid a strike, management MUST increase wages. Since we are given this fact, we have to assume that no other solution will prevent the strike.

Choice (E) simply restates something that is already implied by this premise. The author does not have to make this assumption since we are already given the fact that only a wage increase will prevent a strike.

I hope this helps!

jayarora · Answer

The conclusion is: some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold This stimulus can be seen as a string of conditionals and we are looking for an answer that ensures the conclusion takes place. The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages If workers do not go on strike -> management has increased wages As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the worker’s wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries. If the management has increased wages, Bell would have sold some of its subsidiaries Clearly, as per the chain, we need the workers to not go on strike to ensure that Bell has sold some of its subsidiaries. Hence option (C) is the assumption. Hope that helps

Skyline393 · Answer

Conclusion:  some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold. => Wage is increased. The premise points out that if the wage is increased, the workers would stop going on strike=> C matches.

TheGraceful · Answer

Option 'C' had tempted me but I ended choosing E.
 gmatwhiz ,
Please explain this using your framework method. In fact, I choose E with same thought process and  Ridhimajain96  has similar thought process.
Please help.

Crismore · Answer

GMATNinja I think in the highlighted part you meant that the statement described is a SUFFICIENT condition, since a sufficient condition leaves no room for assuming other possibilities, but a necessary condition actually does it. Let me know whether I am correct or not?

kittle · Answer

KarishmaB - Hi Karishma, this is to better understand the necessary/sufficient condition here-

In the above question, if the management increases the wages, then there is still a possibility that the workers may / may not go on a strike. But if the management doesn't increase the wages, then 100% the workers will go on the strike right? Is my understanding correct ? Can you share more color on necessary/sufficient condition in this example.

I see a conflict in the approach to the above and the below question:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/unless-negot ... s#p3252226

There we said that if negotiations begin soon, then cease fire may or may not be violated
Similarly then in the above question, how can we say that if management increases the wages, the workers will not go on strike? They may because the management increase is a necessary but not a sufficient condition.

KarishmaB · Answer

Keep in Mind - The 'unless clause' is a necessary condition for negated main clause. So 'Unless A, B' means 'Only if A, then not B' The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages . Highlighted is the unless clause. So 'wage increase' is NECESSARY for 'NOT going on strike.' Then here are the premises: 'Wage increase' is NECESSARY for 'NOT going on strike.' Selling subsidiaries is necessary in order to increase wages. Conclusion: Some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold. To conclude that some subsidiaries will be sold, we are assuming that workers will not go on strike. For not going on strike, it is necessary that wage will increase. For wage increase, it is necessary to sell subsidiaries. and hence we are concluding that subsidiaries will be sold. Makes sense. We are "properly drawing" the conclusion. Note that the question is a "sufficient assumption" question. Answer (C) Check this video for necessary and sufficient conditions: https://youtu.be/MmlwcTlHZz8

KarishmaB · Answer

As for the link of the other question you mentioned, note that the question stems are different.

In our current question we need to  properly draw the conclusion  i.e. the conclusion must follow from the premises and the assumption together. So to be sure that some subsidies will be sold, we need to say that strike will not happen because wage increase is necessary for strike not happening and selling subsidies is necessary for wage increase. 
Then, if we know that strike did not happen, we know for sure that wage increase must have happened and subsidies must have been sold. Our conclusion follows.

In the other question, we are asked what must be true and what is not necessary to be true. 
We are given that negotiations did begin soon (the necessary condition is true). Does this mean that the cease fire will not be violated? No. Negotiations are necessary, not sufficient for cease fire to not be violated.

GMATNinja · Answer

Sorry that I'm late to the party here! You raise a great question -- what's the difference between a necessary condition and a sufficient one?

Well, a sufficient condition allows a conclusion to be drawn. For example, if my friend Albert lives in Iceland, is that SUFFICIENT to conclude that he lives on earth? Yes, it is. However, it isn't necessary. To live on earth, it isn't absolutely NECESSARY that you live in Iceland.

Let's take that the other way. If my friend lives in Iceland, then living on earth is a NECESSARY condition for that to be true. But it isn't SUFFICIENT. In other words, just because Albert lives on earth doesn't mean he lives in Iceland.

Let's apply that logic to answer choice (E):

Notice this isn't SUFFICIENT to reach the conclusion. Just because workers "will not accept a package of improved benefits in place of a wage increase" doesn't mean some of Bell's subsidiaries will be sold. Even if the workers don't accept the package, we don't  have  to conclude that some of Bell's subsidiaries will be sold.

Put another way -- even if (E) is true, other outcomes besides Bell selling subsidiaries are possible. Maybe the president will simply allow the workers to go on strike, in which case Bell wouldn't have to raise wages or sell subsidiaries?

Bottom line, since (E) doesn't guarantee the conclusion, it isn't sufficient.

However, (E)  is  necessary. We need to assume that Bell's workers will NOT accept the package. Because if they did, the strike could be avoided without raising wages or selling subsidiaries. Since we're looking for a SUFFICIENT condition, however, not a NECESSARY one, (E) is incorrect.

I hope that helps!

Jammy88 · Answer

not an 800+ question honestly. I think it's best to reclassify

Bunuel · Answer

We do not assign the difficulty level manually. The difficulty level of a question on the site is determined automatically based on various parameters collected from users' attempts, such as the percentage of correct answers and the time taken to answer the question. You can find the difficulty level of a question and its related statistics in the first post. So, the difficulty level of this question is 800+ Level based on the timer attempts from the users.

arushi118 · Answer

I chose option E. I can see that why is C correct -- but had a general doubt -- which I think led me to make a mistake here.
If B is necessary for A, is it possible that some condition C exists which is sufficient for A?
And in this case if C happens then it is not necessary for B to happen for the occurance of A?

KarishmaB  can you please help with this.

guddo · Answer

The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the worker’s wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries. So, some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold. 
 
The conclusion above is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?

The argument’s logic is:  if wages are not increased, the workers will strike; and if wages are increased, Bell must sell some subsidiaries . To conclude that Bell will sell some subsidiaries, we must assume Bell will increase wages rather than allow the strike.

(A) Bell Manufacturing will begin to suffer increased losses.

This is not enough. It says nothing about whether Bell will raise wages or sell subsidiaries.

(B) Bell’s management will refuse to increase its worker’s wages.

This actually hurts the conclusion. If management refuses, then Bell would not need to sell subsidiaries for wage increases.

(C) The workers at Bell Manufacturing will not be going on strike.

This is the best answer. Since the workers will go on strike unless wages are increased, saying they will not go on strike means wages will be increased. And the argument already says that if wages are increased, Bell would have to sell some subsidiaries. So the conclusion follows.

(D) Bell’s president has the authority to offer the workers their desired wage increase.

This is not enough. Authority alone does not mean the increase will actually be given.

(E) Bell’s workers will not accept a package of improved benefits in place of their desired wage increase.

This does not guarantee that wages will be increased. Bell could still refuse and let the strike happen.

Answer: (C)

KarishmaB · Answer

No. If B is necessary for A, then A cannot happen without B. Another condition C will cause A only if B happens. So C cannot be independently sufficient to cause A (without B)

Given: 
Increased wages are necessary to not go on strike. 
Selling subs is necessary for increasing wages.

Assumption, if true: Workers will not go on strike.

If this is true, then it means their wages increased. Then it means subs were sold. So we can infer that subs were sold i.e. we can properly draw the conclusion that subs were sold.

The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the

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